Strange place, the past. It appears to have been full of people who had next to no understanding of 21st-century mores. For some reason, they all seem to have carried on as if it didn’t remotely matter how their 20th-century attitudes and language would be judged by us, their descendants and superiors, in 2013.

This week the BBC was confronted with this problem when airing a repeat of Fawlty Towers. The episode had a scene with the words “wogs” and “niggers” in it. The old major, played by Ballard Berkeley, is explaining the difference between the two. The line gets a big laugh from the studio audience. Or it used to. This time, the BBC cut the line out.

The reason given was that it contained language that might offend. Well, I’m sure it might, if you didn’t get the joke. The joke's on the major. At first it looks as if he’s about to scold someone for being racist – but then he turns out to be racist himself. So we laugh at him. The joke’s actually quite PC.

But still it was cut, because these are words the BBC now feels uncomfortable airing, certainly at 7.30pm. It’s happened before. In 2007, a joke about gay men being sticklers for cleanliness was removed from a repeat of Porridge. It makes you wonder what’s next for the cutting-room floor.

Take Monty Python’s Life of Brian. In 1979, Life of Brian was thought shocking because it mocked man’s weakness for superstition and doctrine. Today, I suspect a broadcaster would be more shocked by the scene in which a male character is ridiculed for his desire to change sex. “I want to be a woman,” he says. “From now on, I want you to call me Loretta… It’s my right as a man… I want to have babies… It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them… Don’t you oppress me…” Plainly, we’re meant to find him absurd, and to agree with the male colleague who grumbles about the man’s “struggle against reality”. (“What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?”)

Given the outrage this month when the columnist Suzanne Moore joked about transsexuals – and the even noisier outrage when another columnist, Julie Burchill, used the phrase “chicks with d----” – I doubt such a scene could be written today. Lynne Featherstone, a Lib Dem minister, demanded that Burchill and her editor be sacked. What would she do with John Cleese? Hang him by his tonsils from Tower Bridge?

Last year, Word magazine ran an article claiming that the “Scorchio!” sketches in The Fast Show – first broadcast in 1994 – were xenophobic. “Humour born of bored English comedians sat in luxurious holiday villas,” it growled. “Greek, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish people all sound the same! How hilarious.” Maybe if the BBC repeats The Fast Show it could edit those sketches out. I’m pretty sure the Ralph & Ted ones were OK. Hang on, though – the joke is that a man has an unspoken crush on another man. Is that homophobic? Oh dear. Future generations are going to be very cross with us.

Lines like the major’s in Fawlty Towers might not be very nice. None the less, this is how a lot of people used to talk (it’s how quite a few people still do talk), and it’s not much use pretending it isn’t. Because that’s what this type of editing is: a pretence.

George Orwell, incidentally, used to write disparagingly of “the pansy Left”. He was, by 2013 standards, homophobic. Should publishers erase his prejudice from his essays? Or would that be a little, well, Orwellian?

Fair cops and shiny trousers

All this talk of repatriating EU powers has reminded me of the greatest sentence ever published in a tabloid. It appeared in 2007 in The Sun. “Female cops with small boobs,” a story began, “will be forced to wear special shiny trousers – to comply with barmy European road safety rules.” EU busybodies, fury, implausibility, breasts – it’s got all you could ask for in a tabloid sentence. Admittedly in the years since, I’ve seen no small-busted policewomen being forced to wear special shiny trousers, but we mustn’t drop our guard. I trust that when David Cameron begins his EU negotiations, this vital issue will be uppermost in his mind.

The Wooster of Westminster

Rory Bremner says it’s hard to do impressions of modern politicians as so few have distinctive characters. This is one of the many excellent reasons why the Prime Minister must promote Jacob Rees-Mogg. Fruitily well-spoken and spotlessly courteous (he claims never to have sworn), the waistcoat-wearing MP for North East Somerset appears to have tumbled out of a PG Wodehouse story and now stands marooned in the 21st century, wondering how to get back. This week he was the star of a Commons debate on royal succession. “Of course I’ll give way!” he would hoot graciously at fellow MPs, as if he could think of no greater honour than being interrupted by them. His one concession to modernity is that he wears glasses. I’m sure he’d feel more at home in a monocle.

Running from commentary

In trouble? Facing a ticking-off at work or at home? In need of an excuse that can be used in any situation? Take a tip from Westminster: frown, then say irritably, “Look, I’m not going to provide a running commentary.”

Listen to an interview with any of the main party leaders and, the moment they’re asked a question they can’t or won’t answer, out comes the “running commentary” line.

I see no reason why it shouldn’t catch on in everyday life. “What time do you call this? Dinner’s ruined and you stink of booze.” “Look, I’m not going to provide a running commentary.” Or: “Where’s your homework? It was due in this morning.” “Look, I’m not going to provide a running commentary.” Or: “Who the hell are you, how did you get into my house, and where do you think you’re going with my flatscreen TV?” “Look, I’m not going to provide a running commentary.” Its uses are endless.

A terrific read, without any doubt

This may sound odd for a columnist to say, but I don’t know what I think. It’s all the fault of a forthcoming non-fiction book by the journalist Will Storr, titled The Heretics. Nominally it’s about obsessives with eccentric beliefs (UFO spotters, homeopaths etc), but really it’s about the human mind, and how it lies to us.

We tell ourselves our opinions are based on evidence, but more often than not, we make snap judgments, then seek evidence that supports us while dismissing any that contradicts us. We’re ruled by unconscious biases. Since reading it, I’ve been a puddle of self-doubt. It’s a terrific book, but maybe it’s safer for your sanity if you don’t pick it up.